Drawing Expressions | 01 | How to Warm Up For Sketching

Start off by quickly drawing several egg shapes that will be used as the basis of the heads you鈥檒l be drawing to go over these expressions.

Keep life simple, and instead of trying to work perfectly, focus on working quickly. Give yourself a little challenge at the start of this exercise and see how quickly you can draw the example heads while still having full control of your hand and pencil.

After the egg, add horizontal and vertical lines to find the middle points of the eggs, and finally draw in some circles for the eyes and another squashed circle for the nose.

Learning how to warm up for sketching will come in useful for whatever you create!

First 3 Example Expressions

From the simple head created in the last step you can create all kinds of different expressions with just a few strokes of the pencil. Follow along with the video and start to work through your own examples.

Are you starting to see how fun and easy drawing expressions聽can be?

Second Batch of Expression Drawings

One of the really important things to take note of while you鈥檙e watching these faces being created is when LaurieB! is talking about how the eyelids and eyebrows follow along with the ‘S’ curve on the head.

Another important thing to notice is when she is explaining about the mass of the cheek and how it can affect the corners of the mouth as well as the eyes.

How much influence the cheek has on the face is determined by the nature of the pose you are trying to draw and how extreme the pose.

Keep Practicing!

Keep working through drawing expressions on the remaining characters on your page, and then if you鈥檙e really feeling up to it, grab another sheet and draw another series of simple heads and try making up your own expressions.

Remember at all times to keep things loose and quick. This is a study exercise and not something that is planned on becoming a finished piece, so have fun with it and get the most out of it by drawing as many expressions as you can.

We hope you鈥檝e enjoyed learning how to warm up for sketching 鈥 why not check out the complete video course?

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Hi! I'm here to help artists get clear on their next steps. I spent 10 years working as a video game and special effects artist, and now work full time to share my knowledge and connect artists with the advice they need.